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There’s no mystical secret when it comes to being a successful business owner. There is certainly no definite set of rules to follow, either. However, you can learn a lot from entrepreneurs who have tried, failed, and finally succeeded before you. We are all bound to make mistakes along the way, and there’s so much MORE

$250,000 is a lot of money. Venture investors might not think so, but for most of us it’s a lot of moolah. And for early stage startups it’s often the amount they ask for coming out of the gate (or $500,000 – which seems to be pretty standard as a first, seed ask). Maybe more. So they start spending. Office space. Office furniture. MORE

I’ve had a string of great board meetings lately. They all had several similar attributes. But I read this independent of the board meeting (which wasn’t on a monthly cadence) and asked questions in reaction to getting the monthly reporting package rather than taking up air time in a board meeting. There was no time limit. MORE

Once again we continue our series on convertible debt deals. Today’s subject is early versus late stage dynamics. Traditionally, convertible debt was issued by mid to late stage startups that needed a financing to get them to a place where they believed they could raise more money. Thus, these deals were called “bridge financings.”. MORE

I’m in San Francisco right now and then New York later this week. When I look at my schedule, and where I’m hanging out, I realize that even though I’m in two very big cities, I’m going to spending most of my time in a very small area. Boulder is a small town – the city itself is only 100,000 people. MORE

As some of you may know, we made a modest investment in Slice of Lime in 2007. This year, Slice of Lime is celebrating 10 years of being in business. This is a huge accomplishment and we couldn’t be more proud of the business Kevin, Jeff, and Daniel have built. To showcase this, Slice of Lime created a 10 Year Anniversary Site. MORE

The post of the day is from Scott Weiss (Andreesseen Horowitz) titled Looking Bigger. Scott’s a new VC blogger – I’ve gotten to know him over the past few years on the Return Path board and he’s a dynamite thinker. VC Post of the Day marketing positioning scott weiss vc post of the day MORE

Since last checking in with the SayAhh team, they have spent a few months consumed with building an early version of the product and speaking to potential customers, all the while watching their cash balance steadily diminish. The co-founders decided to divide-and-conquer, with Dick tackling expense projections and Jane tackling revenue projections. MORE

We’ve been flattered through the years to hear that several highly acclaimed universities have used our term sheet series to teach business, law and engineering students the ins and outs of the venture financing term sheet. Jason co-teaches a class at the University of Colorado Law School called VC 360 with professor Brad Bernthal. MORE

Question: How many shares should I use to incorporate my company? Keep it simple. The more shares you authorize, the more you’ll have to pay in taxes (although these are not large numbers). They key is having enough shares to have the ability to grant all sorts of equity to different people who help your company. Company Creation MORE

Chief economist for the NFIB, William C. Dunkelberg, issued comments on the continued dismal job findings from the latest NFIB monthly economic survey that will be released on Tuesday, October 11, 2011: "There is a reason that Washington is talking in circles when it comes to the economy: There is no good news to report. And the numbers prove it. MORE

Well – I fell off that particular horse. That would be the “I’ll blog daily about the best VC blog post of the past 24 hours.” ” I could make some snarky comment about how there weren’t any for the last few weeks, but that wouldn’t be true. just fell of the horse. ” So I got back on the horse. MORE

Question: How do VCs mitigate risk in their investment portfolios? Are Are VCs simply looking to diversify the type and stage of companies in which they invest, or do they employ other financial hedging strategies? I’m not aware of VCs using classic financial hedging strategies. This ebbs and flows. 4. Venture Capital hedging risk vc MORE

Last week , we gave some attention to the “why” behind convertible note financing for early stage startups. In this installment, I’ll dig into the “how” by dissecting an example term sheet based on a real deal. Let’s dive in, taking it from the top: Type of Security : Convertible Promissory Notes, bearing interest at a simple interest rate of 8%. MORE

I received at least one email a day last week pitching a politics oriented web startup. The emails start off something like this. Over $8 billion dollars will be spent on the upcoming 2012 election. The web and social media are critical tools for any candidate. Did I say that over $8 billion dollars will be spent ? Politics howard schultz startups MORE

I’m Tom McSherry , EJ’s newest columnist. I’ve been self-employed for the past two years thanks to the world of Internet marketing and my skills as a freelance copywriter. In this column I’ll be focusing on how different forms of writing are indispensable to success in business generally and Internet marketing specifically. MORE

The European Investment Fund (EIF) put out a working paper recently that initially sounds like bad news. Fortunately, for those of us in the market long enough, it's actually good news. As a side note, I'm glad to see this paper come out from the EIF. wanted to address each of their hypothesis directly though. Look at Wooga or Wimdu. MORE

“We like what you guys are doing but there’s no way we’d replace the aorta of our communications infrastructure with a beta box from a 20-person startup.” ” —Director of IT, Fidelity Investments (circa 2002). At IronPort, we had built a radically better email gateway. We were so good, but yet so puny. How would they do it? MORE

Earlier in the convertible debt series we talked about the “discounted price to the next round” approach to providing a discount on convertible debt. If you are doing a seed round, we encourage you not to use this approach and save some legal fees. In this case the investor will get a warrant for $20,000. This is where it can get a little tricky. MORE

Question: I am a startup about to receive a convertible loan investment. My friend has been advising me on an adhoc basis re. the financials on a barter basis with me. Now he’d like to formalise his agreement with the company. He has made his money as an entrepreneur and now travels alot but will be available for consultancy for us. MORE

There are many people who should get credit for Union Square Ventures' investment strategy. The community here at AVC is certainly on that list. But possibly at the top of the list is Carlota Perez. Carlota is from Venezuala and lives in the UK and doesn't visit the US very often so this is a pretty special event. Web 2.0 MORE

I shed my tears when Steve Jobs stepped down less than six weeks ago. That's when I knew it was over. The news came to me last night during a board dinner. My 18 year old daughter kik'd me. asked her if she was sure. Steve Jobs has passed away" Six entrepreneurs and VCs in that room. Among the best I've ever worked with. MORE

I shed my tears when Steve Jobs stepped down less than six weeks ago. That's when I knew it was over. The news came to me last night during a board dinner. My 18 year old daughter kik'd me. asked her if she was sure. Steve Jobs has passed away" Six entrepreneurs and VCs in that room. Among the best I've ever worked with.

Question: How do VCs mitigate risk in their investment portfolios? Are Are VCs simply looking to diversify the type and stage of companies in which they invest, or do they employ other financial hedging strategies? I’m not aware of VCs using classic financial hedging strategies. This ebbs and flows. 4. Venture Capital hedging risk vc

I’m in San Francisco right now and then New York later this week. When I look at my schedule, and where I’m hanging out, I realize that even though I’m in two very big cities, I’m going to spending most of my time in a very small area. Boulder is a small town – the city itself is only 100,000 people.

Question: How do VCs mitigate risk in their investment portfolios? Are Are VCs simply looking to diversify the type and stage of companies in which they invest, or do they employ other financial hedging strategies? I’m not aware of VCs using classic financial hedging strategies. This ebbs and flows. 4. Venture Capital hedging risk vc

I’m in San Francisco right now and then New York later this week. When I look at my schedule, and where I’m hanging out, I realize that even though I’m in two very big cities, I’m going to spending most of my time in a very small area. Boulder is a small town – the city itself is only 100,000 people.

$250,000 is a lot of money. Venture investors might not think so, but for most of us it’s a lot of moolah. And for early stage startups it’s often the amount they ask for coming out of the gate (or $500,000 – which seems to be pretty standard as a first, seed ask). Maybe more. So they start spending. Office space. Office furniture.

I’ve had a string of great board meetings lately. They all had several similar attributes. But I read this independent of the board meeting (which wasn’t on a monthly cadence) and asked questions in reaction to getting the monthly reporting package rather than taking up air time in a board meeting. There was no time limit.

Once again we continue our series on convertible debt deals. Today’s subject is early versus late stage dynamics. Traditionally, convertible debt was issued by mid to late stage startups that needed a financing to get them to a place where they believed they could raise more money. Thus, these deals were called “bridge financings.”.

“We like what you guys are doing but there’s no way we’d replace the aorta of our communications infrastructure with a beta box from a 20-person startup.” ” —Director of IT, Fidelity Investments (circa 2002). At IronPort, we had built a radically better email gateway. We were so good, but yet so puny. How would they do it?

Earlier in the convertible debt series we talked about the “discounted price to the next round” approach to providing a discount on convertible debt. If you are doing a seed round, we encourage you not to use this approach and save some legal fees. In this case the investor will get a warrant for $20,000. This is where it can get a little tricky.

Question: I am a startup about to receive a convertible loan investment. My friend has been advising me on an adhoc basis re. the financials on a barter basis with me. Now he’d like to formalise his agreement with the company. He has made his money as an entrepreneur and now travels alot but will be available for consultancy for us.

Since last checking in with the SayAhh team, they have spent a few months consumed with building an early version of the product and speaking to potential customers, all the while watching their cash balance steadily diminish. The co-founders decided to divide-and-conquer, with Dick tackling expense projections and Jane tackling revenue projections.

I’m Tom McSherry , EJ’s newest columnist. I’ve been self-employed for the past two years thanks to the world of Internet marketing and my skills as a freelance copywriter. In this column I’ll be focusing on how different forms of writing are indispensable to success in business generally and Internet marketing specifically.

Question: How many shares should I use to incorporate my company? Keep it simple. The more shares you authorize, the more you’ll have to pay in taxes (although these are not large numbers). They key is having enough shares to have the ability to grant all sorts of equity to different people who help your company. Company Creation

I received at least one email a day last week pitching a politics oriented web startup. The emails start off something like this. Over $8 billion dollars will be spent on the upcoming 2012 election. The web and social media are critical tools for any candidate. Did I say that over $8 billion dollars will be spent ? Politics howard schultz startups

There are many people who should get credit for Union Square Ventures' investment strategy. The community here at AVC is certainly on that list. But possibly at the top of the list is Carlota Perez. Carlota is from Venezuala and lives in the UK and doesn't visit the US very often so this is a pretty special event. Web 2.0

Last week , we gave some attention to the “why” behind convertible note financing for early stage startups. In this installment, I’ll dig into the “how” by dissecting an example term sheet based on a real deal. Let’s dive in, taking it from the top: Type of Security : Convertible Promissory Notes, bearing interest at a simple interest rate of 8%.

We’ve been flattered through the years to hear that several highly acclaimed universities have used our term sheet series to teach business, law and engineering students the ins and outs of the venture financing term sheet. Jason co-teaches a class at the University of Colorado Law School called VC 360 with professor Brad Bernthal.

As some of you may know, we made a modest investment in Slice of Lime in 2007. This year, Slice of Lime is celebrating 10 years of being in business. This is a huge accomplishment and we couldn’t be more proud of the business Kevin, Jeff, and Daniel have built. To showcase this, Slice of Lime created a 10 Year Anniversary Site.

Chief economist for the NFIB, William C. Dunkelberg, issued comments on the continued dismal job findings from the latest NFIB monthly economic survey that will be released on Tuesday, October 11, 2011: "There is a reason that Washington is talking in circles when it comes to the economy: There is no good news to report. And the numbers prove it.

Well – I fell off that particular horse. That would be the “I’ll blog daily about the best VC blog post of the past 24 hours.” ” I could make some snarky comment about how there weren’t any for the last few weeks, but that wouldn’t be true. just fell of the horse. ” So I got back on the horse.

The European Investment Fund (EIF) put out a working paper recently that initially sounds like bad news. Fortunately, for those of us in the market long enough, it's actually good news. As a side note, I'm glad to see this paper come out from the EIF. wanted to address each of their hypothesis directly though. Look at Wooga or Wimdu.

There’s no mystical secret when it comes to being a successful business owner. There is certainly no definite set of rules to follow, either. However, you can learn a lot from entrepreneurs who have tried, failed, and finally succeeded before you. We are all bound to make mistakes along the way, and there’s so much

The post of the day is from Scott Weiss (Andreesseen Horowitz) titled Looking Bigger. Scott’s a new VC blogger – I’ve gotten to know him over the past few years on the Return Path board and he’s a dynamite thinker. VC Post of the Day marketing positioning scott weiss vc post of the day